CHAPTER TWO
I pause outside my sisters’ bedroom, listening to them argue. Raised voices, squeals of annoyance. Shrill, my father would say if we ever behaved in such a fashion in front of him. Not that we would dare. We are the daughters of the Sea King, and daughters must be good at all times.
“That’s my comb.”
“It’s not, Talia, your comb is black.”
“I have a black comb and a coral comb, and you’re using my coral comb. Give it to me right now.”
“Talia,” Cosima says, as I push the door open. She and Talia are floating in the middle of the room, my other three sisters ignoring them from the safety of their beds. “Not everything belongs to you. It’s my comb.”
It is a huge space; vaulted ceilings lined with seaweed in greens and browns, the floor paved with pearlescent marble. There are two single beds on either side and one double at the head of the room by the window of stained sea-glass, where Talia has slept since we left the nursery eight years ago. “I am the eldest,” she said when she claimed it for her own, ignoring Cosima’s protestations. “I shall have this bed until I leave the palace for the house of my husband,” she said then, with a grand wave of her hand. Talia doesn’t make comments like that any more. We all know that Talia shall be a long time waiting to leave this palace.
I used to have a bed in the dormitory too, falling asleep with my hand stretched out to hold Cosima’s. I had nightmares then, visions of the acute pain the humans might have inflicted upon my mother when they captured her, and Cosima would shake me awake, reassure me that everything was fine. Don’t worry, Gaia, she would say. Cosima was the only one who called me Gaia, because she understood how much it meant to me. But then I celebrated my twelfth birthday, and everything changed.
Cosima, quietly crying herself to sleep at night, each rasping sob a rebuke. It’s not my fault, I wanted to tell her. I didn’t ask him to pick me. I didn’t ask for any of this. In the end, I requested to be moved to the tower at the top of the palace, pretending not to care that none of my sisters objected. “But there’s no ceiling in the tower,” my father had frowned. “Only the sea above you.” I told him I didn’t mind, and I smiled at him the way he liked, like a good little girl. He relented, saying, “Anything for my Muirgen,” and he granted me permission to move my belongings to the high turrets, dragging my bed and my mirror and my comb and my jewels with me. And the statue, of course, although I had to do that when my father wasn’t looking.
The Sea King hates the humans. The only time he is happy to hear of them is when their corpses sink into the kingdom, eyes still open as if searching for something. A loved one? A rescue that will never come? I can’t be sure. Not that it matters to the Sea King. A dead human, my father would say, smiling grimly as a body floated past the dining room window, is the best human. (But can you blame him? my grandmother said. Can you blame him after they took your mother?)
“Give it back,” Talia says now, wrestling the comb out of Cosima’s hands with a triumphant ha!
“Good day, sisters,” I say and they both turn to look at me.
“You’re late,” Talia says, running the comb through her black hair. She is the only one whose hair refuses to curl, no matter how carefully she wraps it around conch shells. We tease her that she must be half-Rusalka; with hair that straight she cannot have pure sea-water running through her veins.
“Have you gone up yet?” Cosima asks.
“Not yet,” I reply. “I will go at first light tomorrow morning.”
“Goodness,” Cosima says. “I assumed you would have been racing up there at the earliest opportunity. Perhaps you are not so like that ‘mother’ of ours after all. It would have been a terrible shame if you had inherited that woman’s sickness.”
“Don’t talk about our mother like that,” I say, anger flaring.
“Why not? She abandoned us, didn’t she?”
“She didn’t abandon us.”
“Muirgen,” Cosima sighs. “She knew the dangers and yet she kept going to the surface, day after day. She was reckless. She might not have meant to be captured, but she still brought it upon herself. She abandoned us.”
What can I reply to that? Perhaps we were easy to abandon.
“Come now, Cosima,” Sophia, my third eldest sister says. “Leave Muirgen alone. Have you forgotten that it’s her birthday?”
“Forgotten? How could any of us forget what day today is?”
“Okay, Cosima,” I snap. “I get it. Today is a cursed day and I am a cursed mermaid. Are you happy now?”
“Hush, sister,” Sophia says. “This is your birthday and we are happy to celebrate it. All of us.” She swims towards me, her waist-length brown hair floating behind her. She hugs me, smelling of salt and tin, of weeds draped around her neck and wrists. She smells the same as all of us do. (Up there, the women wear the fragrance of flowers on their skin; they smell of rose and lily and jasmine. Up there, flowers carry scent, seeping perfume from their buds.)
“I know it’s your day, Muirgen,” Talia says, biting her nails. She is always tense on my birthday. She was seven the year I turned one and thus she remembers the infamous party. Talia remembers everything. “But that doesn’t excuse you being late. We’ll all get in trouble too, you know.”
“I’m not late, Talia.”
“You’re late,” Talia insists. “Isn’t she late, Nia?”
Nia is by the window, fingers pressed against the clear green glass, staring at the fish drifting past. “What?” she says. “Yes. Yes, you’re right, Talia. You’re always right.” She attempts to smile at me. “But happy birthday all the same, Muirgen.”
“How many pearls did you get?” Cosima asks. “It looks like Grandmother gave you seven pearls. Did she give you seven pearls? Why would you get seven pearls when the rest of us only have six?”
“I only got six pearls too, Cosima,” I say as Sophia takes my hand, holding back the gossamer curtain wrapped around her bed so I can swim through. “The same as the rest of you did. Grandmother wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“Oh, I’m sure you did. Precious Muirgen,” she mutters under her breath, returning to the mirror that is mounted at the head of her bed, decorated with cockles and red algae. “Typical.”
“To be perfectly honest, the concept of wearing pearls is archaic,” Arianna pipes up. She is lying on her stomach, her mint-green tail folding over to skim her back as if scratching an itch. “If any of you bothered to come with me and Sophia and Grandmother when we visit the Outerlands, you would understand what a horrendous waste of resources it is. We should be spending palace money on improving conditions for those folk rather than this frivolous vanity.”
“Yes, Arianna, you’ve mentioned that before,” I say. About a hundred times. Grandmother visits the Outerlands every week, to where my father has sent the “undesirables”, the mer-folk that he cannot stomach to see within the palace walls. She brings them food, and unctions the healer has prepared, and while the Sea King does not approve of our grandmother’s demonstrations of good will, he does not forbid it either. I think he might be wary of what could happen if the folk in the Outerlands got too hungry.
“But it’s not like it’s our decision to wear the pearls, now, is it?” I ask Arianna. Nothing is ever our decision.
“And that’s why I don’t wear decoration in my everyday life, out of principle,” Arianna continues, ignoring me. “But, then, I’m not as obsessed with this nonsense over pearls and mirrors and which comb belongs to whom and whose hair is the curliest. I mean, really, if you just came with Grandmother and me the next time we go on a charity mission then you would see how terrible the conditions are, those poor folk are—”
“The mer-folk in the Outerlands are fine,” Cosima interrupts. “Better than fine. They’re lucky that we allow them to remain here at all. Unnatural creatures.”
“Unnatural?” Nia asks, her voice sharp. I glance at her in surprise; Nia never gets involved in arguments. “They can’t help being the way they are.”
“Please.” Cosima rolls her eyes. “They could change if they really wanted to. And, anyway,” she turns her attention back to Arianna, “you’re wearing your pearls today, Ari, for all your talk of principles.”
“Today doesn’t count. You know that I can’t…” Arianna doesn’t finish her sentence. But I know what she would say.
I can’t because there is a ball at court today.
I can’t because Father will be there, and he will expect us to be properly attired.
I can’t because the Sea King will be angry if we do not do as he wishes. He will not stand for female insubordination, today of all days.
And we know what happens when our father is angry.
“Let’s not talk about this any more,” Sophia says, quick to make peace. “You look beautiful, birthday girl. Zale won’t be able to take his eyes off you.”
“I think Zale has more important things on his mind,” Cosima says, her jaw tightening. Yet another thing she can be angry with me about. I wish Zale would take his eyes off me and put them back on Cosima. At least she enjoyed it.
“Oh,” I say. “Cosima is entirely correct. I’m sure Zale won’t even notice me.” I hope he won’t. “Too busy trying to figure out a way to kill every Rusalka under the sea, no doubt.”
“And why shouldn’t he?” Cosima asks. “Zale is just trying to protect us. The Salkas are dangerous. They’re not like us. They were not born of the sea, as we were.”
She says this as if it is new information, as if we have not been told this story since we were children. Or versions of it, anyway. Grandmother’s version was more compassionate; the Salkas are wretched, she would say. They have been hurt, and therefore they lash out. Be kind. The Rusalkas have been in these seas as long as the mer-folk have, but they are not of salt. They were human women once, but they sinned. They had to be punished, as fallen women must be, and they died crying, sobs caught in their throats, tearing the life out of their chests. The drowning girls, my grandmother calls them. The dead who somehow found a way to breathe under water, even before the Sea Witch decided to become their champion. Grandmother was the only one who thought the Salkas deserved pity, despite the fact that they had taken the life of her only son during the war. Why are you not angry with the Rusalkas after what happened with Uncle Manannán? I once asked her, but she said that I was too young to understand.
The other version is what everyone else told us. Stories about the Salkas’ behaviour when we were at war, the damage they had wreaked and how they had smiled for the duration, hungry for more blood to be shed.
“The Salkas must be controlled,” Cosima says, twirling a blonde curl around her finger, still gazing into her mirror.
“Lucky we have Zale, then,” I say. “He enjoys nothing more than controlling women.” My other sisters laugh, then stop instantly. We are not allowed laugh at the mer-men, no matter how high our birth.
“Enough of this,” Talia says. “We’re late. The light is shifting in the water.” She herds Nia and Arianna from their beds, pulling Cosima away from her reflection. “We’re going to get in trouble.” She turns at the door to stare at Sophia and me. “Well? Are you coming?”
“Just a minute,” I say. I need to gather my strength before this spectacle begins.
“Muirgen, I forbid you from delaying any longer.”
“I’m fifteen now, Talia. You can’t ‘forbid’ me from doing anything. You’re not my mother.”
“I am very much aware of that,” she says quietly, and I wish I hadn’t said that. Not to Talia. “Very well, then. I forbid nothing; but I’m advising you that being late would be a grave mistake.”
“I won’t be late.”
“This is your birthday, Muirgen. You can’t be late for your own party.” I almost laugh. Whatever tonight is, it has very little to do with my birthday. “I’m serious,” she continues. “Father will—”
“Father will be fine,” I say. “I will join you at court in five minutes.”
With an exaggerated exhale, she leaves, the others close behind, waves of thick hair swishing in their wake.
“Seven pearls,” I can hear Cosima complaining. “And a ball thrown to celebrate her bir…” Her voice fades away and the room becomes peaceful, for once.
“I’m so glad I don’t have to sleep in the dormitory any more,” I had told my grandmother when I was moving to the tower. “I need to be alone, sometimes, to think my thoughts.”
She touched her hand to my cheek. “You are so like your mother,” she said. Why? I wanted to ask her. And in what way? Tell me about her, Grandmother. Tell me about the day she was born and what she was like as a child and what her favourite games were and her favourite foods, what songs she liked to sing. Tell me, tell me, tell me. I have so many questions and I know none of them will ever be answered. Not down here, at least.
“Cosima needs to stop this, I don’t get any preferential treatment. Not from Grandmother, anyway,” I say, when I am sure they are out of earshot.
“You know why she behaves in such a way,” Sophia says quietly. “Try and understand.”
“That doesn’t excuse her from being rude,” I argue. “Or Talia for being so bossy. Hurry up, Muirgen. You’ll be late, Muirgen. She’ll never get a mer-man if she keeps acting like that. And Nia is worse, always agreeing with everything Talia says. She should develop a backbone.”
“Be kind,” Sophia says. She wraps her hair up into a bun, holding it in place with a piece of broken conch. “Talia is twenty-one and not yet betrothed. She knows she is the talk of the court; it is all she can think about.”
“Maybe she’s better off,” I say, and we fall silent. There is nothing that can be done to save me now, and we both know it.
“And as for Nia…” she continues. “Well. Nia has her own problems.”
“What do you mean?” I ask. “Nia is betrothed to Marlin. Her future is secure.”
“And do you believe that Nia wants to be bonded with Marlin?”
“I—” (The palace kitchens. Last year. Nia sobbing, her skin blotchy – Father would not have been happy if he had seen her like that. Please, Grandmother, Nia had begged. Please don’t make me. I can’t. I’m not like that, do you understand me? I’m not— Grandmother silent. Then she saw me. Muirgen, she snapped. What are you doing? Stop eavesdropping.)
“Sophia,” I say now. “What do you mean?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she says. Her eyes meet mine, blue on blue on blue again. I wish mine were another colour. Up there, the stories go, the women have eyes of brown and green and violet and hazel. Their skin is brown and black and pink and white. Up there, the women are allowed to be different.
“What do you think Mama would say if she was here today?” I ask and Sophia glances behind her nervously. We all do this, I’ve noticed; as if we are afraid our father will be there, waiting for us to make a mistake.
“I think she would kiss you and wish you a happy birthday,” she says. “And then she would tell you she loves you.”
But she didn’t love me enough to stay.
Sometimes I wonder if I should be angry with my mother for that, like Cosima is. But I’m not. I miss her. And I want to know the truth about what happened to her.
The court room is shimmering; gem stones embedded in the coral walls. Blood-red streamers hanging from the ceiling, woven from every sea-flower within the vicinity of the palace, swaying in the fluttering water. Enormous cockle-shells have been prised open and dug into a circle on the sand, mer-people nestled in their hearts, wishing me a happy birthday as I pass.
Midway up the back wall, a balcony has been carved out of the palest sandstone and studded with over-sized pearls. The Sea King is there, my father, hands bearing down on the balustrade, my sisters in a single-file line behind him. His hair is cropped close, as is customary for mer-men, a thin gold crown circling his head. The trident is resting against the balcony wall; he has no need of a weapon at an event like this, yet he keeps it close to him anyway. His jaw is working back and forward, a furious click of bone, snap, snap. My father hates this ball, and yet he continues to insist that it be thrown, the festivities more elaborate with each passing year. He shall prove to the mer-folk, once and for all, how little he cares about my mother’s desertion and we will believe him, if we know what’s good for us.
“Muirgen. Sophia.” My grandmother loops around us, a crown of battered metal plaited through her long, greying hair. “Where have you been? You know the Sea King does not like to be kept waiting.” She pushes us before her, swimming until we reach the Sea King. Sophia joins my sisters at the back of the balcony, Grandmother settling at her side. I approach my father – I must present myself to him before remaining at his side for this part of the festivities.
“Is there any particular reason that you are late?” my father asks as I hover before him. His left eye is twitching, never a good sign. “I do not appreciate this tardiness, Muirgen.”
“I’m sorry, Father,” I say. “I wanted to ensure that I looked my best before leaving my bedroom.”
“Well, let me see if the delay was worthwhile, then.” His gaze licks up from my tail to my crown. I keep my face very still. He does not like it when we flinch.
“You are pleasing to me, Muirgen,” he says finally. “Most pleasing indeed.” He tosses a compliment back at my grandmother. “You have done well this evening, Thalassa.”
“Thank you, Sea King,” my grandmother replies, relaxing. “But the praise should surely rest with you. For it is you who has created her. It is you who gave her life, is it not?”
“This is true,” he says. “Hopefully she will take after me in other respects too, for her own sake.”
He takes me by the shoulders then, turning me around to face the crowd. I blink in the bright light, wondering at the vast numbers of people, most of whom are unknown to me. And yet they all know my name, of course.
“Greetings, mer-men, mermaids, all of my loyal subjects. It is a pleasure to receive you at court today, on this, the celebration of my youngest daughter’s birthday.”
The mer-folk swim out of the cockle-shells, gazing up at us with envy and fascination. We, the chosen ones. “Today is a wonderful day. Not only do we celebrate the cleansing of our kingdom, the decontamination of the palace…” He gives the same speech every year, and yet his indignation never seems to dissipate. “But to add to our joy, Princess Muirgen turns fifteen today. An important age, as you all know. An age that brings extra privileges, yes, but also extra responsibilities. I have no doubt that Muirgen is up to the task of both. She is my most beloved child.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Cosima scowling, then remembers her manners, her face smoothing into a blankness that I recognize too well. I shall pay for my father’s comments later. “And the most attractive,” the Sea King adds. “She resembles me, does she not?”
The mer-folk cheer, even though everyone knows that I look like my mother. I watch them clapping for my beauty, as if it was something I had earned.
“Sing,” they shout. “Sing, Princess!” The words bubbling up to meet us, demanding to be heard.
“The people have spoken,” my father says. “You shall sing, Muirgen.”
“I am tired, Father,” I say. My voice is one of the few things that is mine, and mine alone. I do not want to share it with this baying crowd. “I was hoping I could rest this evening.”
“I said, sing, Muirgen,” he repeats, his tone shark-threat. “I too want to hear your voice. You will not deny me, your father, will you?”
The Sea King cannot be denied. I learned that lesson a long time ago.
“Of course not, Father,” I say. “Whatever you want.”
I breathe in, and I can feel the notes trembling at the base of my throat, forming without any real effort. I open my mouth and the melody spills out, slithering through the water, turning everything it touches translucent.
The mer-folk look up at me, spellbound, the melody lacing us together as one. It has wound its way into their bodies, shivering through them. This is my gift, but unlike the much-admired symmetry of my face, this gift actually brings me joy. For the last few years, I have noticed that it is only when I am singing that I ever feel complete, as if my body and my soul have finally found one another. There you are, they whisper, curling up in each other’s arms, I’ve missed you.
“What a treat for you all, what an honour,” my father cuts in before the end, the song scurrying out of my reach, as if frightened away. “Such clarity. Such purity. I’m sure we can all agree that my daughter’s purity of voice has no parallel.”
“Thank you, Father.” I repeat the lines that I have been taught to say since birth. “Thank you for bestowing this gift upon me. I am fortunate to have been born as your salt-kin.”
“You are most welcome,” he says, kissing my forehead. “A father’s love for his daughter knows no bounds. And that is all any child needs, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Yes, Father.”
“Yes, Father … what?”
“All a child needs is the love of her father.”
“Very good. But let us not waste any more time chit-chatting,” he says. His eyes move from one sister to the other and each of us tense when we realize what is coming next. It never gets easier, somehow, no matter how often it happens. “Talia, you go at the end,” he says, grimacing as if he can barely stand to look at her. “Then Arianna, then Sophia.” Arianna looks momentarily perturbed, despite her claims to be above such “vanity”. “Nia,” my father says, “you are looking quite pretty today. Marlin is a lucky man.” My sister stares at the balcony floor. “And now,” he says, when it is only Cosima and I remaining. “Which of my daughters deserves prime position today? Whom shall win the honour of standing closest to me, your beloved father?” His gaze lingers on Cosima for a second, just long enough to give her hope. I wish he wouldn’t do this. “Cosima, you can go in second place,” he says. “And Muirgen, that face, that face! You are the winner, as it should be. Stand next to me, my love.”
I take my position behind him, lining up with my sisters. “Sorry,” I whisper when I accidentally brush against Cosima, but she doesn’t acknowledge me, just tosses her hair back as if she doesn’t have a care in the world. The opaque amber doors to the court are pushed open, and the chorus mermaids swim through, their voices blending together to create a wall of sound. The other mer-folk cheer at their arrival, taking to the water to dance, twirling with exquisite fragility.
“Oh, how lovely they all look,” Cosima says. “The maids in particular. See, Father? See how their pearls shine as they dance?” He affords her a rare smile and she lights up. “I feel sorry for the men,” she says to him. “How sad that they must live without such decoration.”
My father laughs at the thought. The men do not need to be beautiful. I watch them as they dance. They are not weighed down by pearls; their movements are a fraction faster than the mermaids, their limbs loose. Free.
The party continues and my family remains on the balcony, maintaining a dignified distance as we watch the revellers below. “It is late, Sea King,” my grandmother says when the light disappears, the water slicking black. “With your permission, I might put your daughters to rest. They are looking weary.”
“Yes, Thalassa,” my father says. “Some of the girls may go. It is essential they get adequate beauty sleep – particularly you, Talia.” My sister just nods. “But Nia and Muirgen, you will stay behind. I am sure your betrotheds would like to speak with you.”
“As you wish, Sea King,” my grandmother says, beckoning my sisters to follow her. Cosima turns back, and I know whose face she hopes to catch a glimpse of. Oh, Cosima.
My father picks up his trident, banging it once on the balcony floor for Zale and a second time for Marlin. The two mer-men are huddled in a cockle-shell with their friends but at my father’s command, their bodies rise out of the shell as if an invisible lasso is fastened around their waists, dragging them against their will. Zale struggles initially, but then he acts like he doesn’t care, that he desired an audience with the Sea King anyway. I watch as he gets closer to me, this man who will be my husband, and my stomach clenches, threatening to spit its contents out through my teeth.
“Sea King,” Zale says as he is pulled on to the balcony. Every time I see him I am struck once more by how old he is; his hair is thinning, with patches of grey fuzz, and he has deep-cut lines on his forehead. He is nothing like the handsome prince foretold in my grandmother’s nymph-tales of true love. My sisters and I, so small, nestled in our beds, waiting for her to finish the story with and they all lived happily ever after. I used to wonder then why my mother didn’t get a happy ending. Maybe they were reserved for girls who did as they were told.
Zale bows his head in deference to my father and Marlin does the same just a beat later.
“Many thanks for a wonderful evening, Sea King; your generosity is unparallelled.” Zale’s voice is so obsequious, I would think he was being insincere if I didn’t know better.
“Today must be celebrated,” my father replies. “For fourteen years, I have ruled this kingdom by myself.”
“Indeed, and you have done such a difficult job with great wisdom and strength,” Zale says. “Good riddance to bad rubbish, sir.” I bristle at my mother being referred to like this, but I contain myself. Anger is not alluring in maids, my father says. “If I may be so bold as to ask,” Zale continues, “to what do we owe the honour of an audience with the royal family?”
“It is late,” my father says. “And my daughters are tired. I thought you would want to bid them farewell.”
Marlin blushes. “Goodnight, Nia,” he says, reaching out a hand to touch hers, shuddering as if he has been electrified when he makes contact. My sister is motionless, her tail barely beating, eyes downcast. I do not understand such a muted reaction. Marlin is a little insipid, yes, but he is kind. Gentle. He will be good to her. I envy her that.
“You may go, Marlin,” Father dismisses him, and Nia gives an imperceptible sigh of relief. Marlin bows his head to the Sea King again, and swims away, his skeletal torso a sliver of flesh slicing through the water. My father releases Nia with a wave of his hand and I silently beg her to stay, to protect me. But she goes, because my father has told her to do so, and I am left alone with them.
“Sea King,” Zale says, digging his spear into the ground. Zale is never without that spear, although there is no need for it. The kingdom is at peace, and has been for many years now. Much to Zale’s dismay.
The war between the Salkas and the mer-folk had dragged on for ten years, the old folk say, and there didn’t seem to be a respite in sight. And then my mother – not queen then, just an ordinary mermaid at court – went to my father and begged him to call a ceasefire. In exchange, she promised to marry him on her sixteenth birthday. That was something the Sea King had long yearned for, apparently, but any maid under the age of twenty needs to have their father’s permission if they are to be betrothed. Or their father’s decision, as in my case. You’re so lucky, they tell me when they hear I am to be bonded with Zale. I am so very lucky.
As if on cue, Zale begins to talk, and it is his favourite subject. War. “We need to talk about the Sea Witch and the Salkas,” he spits, as if the word “salkas” is burning a hole through his tongue. “They are becoming—”
“Zale,” my father says softly and my spine straightens. I know that tone, and what it means, too well. “Have you forgotten that we have company?”
There is a pause as Zale’s eyes go to my face. “Of course not,” he says, smiling as if he wants to eat me whole, and then chew on my bones for comfort. We will be bonded in a year, I remind myself, me and this old man, and my throat closes up. “How could I possibly forget, when such loveliness stands before me?” he says.
“Well, then,” my father says. “I’ll ask you not to discuss such things in front of my daughter, or any maid for that matter. This is none of their business.”
Zale runs a hand over his shaved head, his eyes narrowing. They are blue, like the rest of the mer-folk, and yet they seem darker as he imagines battles, sword striking sword, heads cleaved off torsos. Zale will not be happy until his spear is smeared with blood. Preferably a Salka’s, but I don’t think he’s overly particular. “I apologize, Sea King,” he says. “And a very happy birthday, Muirgen. Fifteen at last, you must be excited.”
My name is Gaia. That is the name my mother gave me. Perhaps if Zale was a different kind of man, I could ask him to call me by the name that I prefer. But I don’t think he would care for such niceties. All he is concerned with is that I am the most beautiful daughter of the Sea King. I am a prize to be won, and Zale likes the taste of victory.
“Did my daughter not sing sweetly tonight?” Father asks, exhibiting me for Zale’s approval. I breathe through my nose, trying to remain calm. It will be over soon.
“Such talent,” Zale says, although I suspect he has no love for music.
“And doesn’t she look radiant? One of the great beauties of the kingdom. A great, great beauty.”
“That is the truth,” Zale says. “I still remember the night of that ball, when it was apparent she would become the fairest of your daughters. I knew then that she should be mine.”
I remember that night too. I had just turned twelve. That was the night that Cosima began to cry.
“You were smart,” my father says, pressing his fingertips into my shoulder blades. “You got in early. If Muirgen were not my daughter, perhaps I would have chosen her for myself.”
He and Zale laugh, and I try and smile too. Just mer-man talk, I think. No need to be so sensitive.
“But really, sir,” Zale says, sombre again. “We cannot wait much longer. There has been movement…”
“Aye, I suppose we should,” my father says. “Shall we discuss this now?”
Zale nods. The two men stand side-by-side, uncannily similar with their grey buzz-cuts and broad shoulders. They could be brothers. The Sea King unlocks an ornately carved door at the side of the balcony, opening it into the war room. I see a flash of silver, racks of spiked weapons, waiting patiently to be used.
My mother sacrificed herself to ensure that this door would remain locked for ever. But my mother is gone.
“Muirgen,” Father says. “You may leave.” Neither he nor Zale check to see if I obey his command. There is no need.
For I am the daughter of the Sea King and I will do as I am told.
I knock on the open door of my sisters’ room, waiting until they grant me permission to enter. Each of my sisters is lying alone, bodies made shadow by the white gauze wrapped around their beds. They are awake, and yet none of them speak to me, not even Sophia. They always end up resenting me on my birthday.
“Muirgen,” Grandmother says. “Come in.”
I did not see her there, tucked into the corner of the room behind Cosima’s bed, sitting in front of a mirror bordered with crystals cut into the shape of stars. It is the largest mirror in the kingdom, falling during the Great Storm which cracked the sky open and tore the sea apart. I had wanted it for the tower but Cosima had refused. “No,” she had said, folding her arms. “I found it first. It’s mine. You can’t have everything you want.” We both knew she wasn’t talking about the mirror.
“Sit with me, child,” Grandmother says. She is sitting on a cockle-shell seat, and I align my body with hers, my dark green scales a stark contrast to her silver tail. She runs her fingers through my hair, unpicking the braid. It should be my mother who is doing this. My mother would be thirty-seven now, still relatively young. Would she have allowed the betrothal to Zale to occur, if she knew how revolted I was by him? Would she have been the only one who could stand up to the Sea King, or would care enough to do so? I stare at my grandmother and myself in the mirror, our faces fine-boned and sharp of angles. I can see the foreshadow of what is to come as the years pass and my beauty fades, my skin folding in on itself, my hair shedding its vibrant colour. Is this what my mother would have looked like one day, when she reached her hundredth year?
“You’re bleeding, Grandmother,” I say, looking down at her tail. The pearls are twisting, the weight pulling down, plucking tendrils of flesh away. There is a gap between the gemstones and her tail, open wounds filling with bubbles of blood. “Are you in pain?” I ask. “Shall I call the healer?”
“No,” she says, reaching to unscrew another pearl, wheezing as it comes away in her hands. “Ah, but I am too old for such finery. No one cares for the pitiable attempts of an old woman to retain her youth.”
“Then why do you wear them?”
“Your father desires that all women be properly adorned at court. And I am the mermaid of the highest birth since…” Since your mother left.
“But—”
“The Sea King has willed it, Muirgen,” she says. “And that is that.”
I let it go, nestling against her as she strokes my hair. “There, there, my salt-heart,” she says. And for a second, I pretend that she is someone else, another woman who dreamed too much. Another woman who looked up.
“Grandmother,” I say. “Tell me the story of the first time you went up.”
She groans, but she cannot refuse me today.
“It was my fifteenth birthday,” she begins, and I mouth the words along with her. I have heard this story so many times before. It was the lullaby that rocked me asleep when I was a baby, the soothing croon that calmed me after a fight with one of my sisters.
My grandmother was fifteen and she looked up, following the sun to the surface. “And I felt heat for the very first time,” she says now, as she always does. “A heat so intense that I had to dive back under; it seemed as if my skin might be peeled from my bones.” She broke the water’s skin again, seeing fish that flew in the air (Birds, my child, they call them birds up there) and ships (What are they like, you ask? Well, they are like giant whales made of wooden planks, I suppose) floating past in the distance. Grandmother Thalassa stayed there until the sun fell beneath the waves and she dropped deep into the sea’s chest to search for it, to hold that scalding gold between her fingers; but it had disappeared.
“It was beautiful,” she says now. “But not as beautiful as the Sea Kingdom.”
My sisters whisper their agreement, their voices closer than expected. I blink to find them in a semicircle at our tails, gazing at our grandmother, rapt in her story. When she is done, they tell their own. The dawn of their fifteenth birthdays, a whole new world to be found. A dazzle of stars strewn across a midnight sky or wild swans dashing through crimson clouds with a loud battle cry. Icebergs glittering in a glacial sea, impaled by a sudden spike of lightning and sheared in two. Human children (They looked so innocent, Sophia said. They had not yet turned bad, Cosima replied. Give them time.) splashing in shallow water, a barking animal at their side (a dog, my grandmother explained). The children were somehow able to swim though they had no tails; it was most peculiar, they said. The clatter of people living in coastal towns, from whom my sisters kept a safe distance. The roar of engines, the soaring church spires reaching for heaven’s graze.
“Beautiful,” each of my sisters says now. “But not as beautiful as the Sea Kingdom.”
For the last five years, I have watched my sisters rise out of the water, one by one, wishing I could go with them. And for the last five years, I have watched as my father has awaited their return. “Well?” he asked each of them, his teeth clenched. “It was fine, Father,” they all replied. “But I have no desire to go back.” It is strange. The Sea King could simply ban these expeditions, forbid us from travelling to the realm that claimed our mother and took her life. But he does not. Perhaps he wants to gauge the depths of our loyalty. Perhaps it is a test to see if we are showing signs of turning, like our mother did before us.
“And tomorrow,” Grandmother says, “it will be your time, Muirgen. And I hope you too will see that the world up there is charming, but it has not been designed for the likes of us. It is not safe for our kind.”
Then why show it to us? Why risk our mother’s fate? But I stay silent, for fear that such questions will result in my being unable to travel to the surface; and I must see it for myself. I must.
“Of course it is not safe for us,” Cosima says. “Not after what they did to our mother.”
“Your mother,” Grandmother says slowly, “was so young. Only fifteen when she promised her hand in marriage, sixteen when your father took her as his bride.” I am only fifteen too, I feel like reminding her, and I am to be wed next year; but it will be of no use. “And at the time of their bonding ceremony, your parents seemed…”
“Happy?” Talia asks hopefully.
“They seemed settled,” Grandmother says. “They had you girls so quickly, one after the other.” So many girls, and all my father wanted was a son. Another way in which Muireann of the Green Sea failed him. “And your mother was fine. I thought she was fine.”
“She was fine until you were born, Muirgen,” Cosima mutters.
“Stop that,” Grandmother says. “Your mother always loved the human world; she visited there often after her fifteenth birthday. She would regale your grandfather and me with the sights she had seen, the things she had witnessed. Your grandfather, the sea gods bless his memory, he warned her to be careful. He warned her that the humans were not to be trusted. But she didn’t listen. She was so tempestuous, that girl. There was no controlling her.”
“Our mother started to visit the surface more often.” Talia picks up the story for Grandmother Thalassa. We know it well. “She stopped eating. She complained that she was tired all the time.”
“And the Sea King thought she had fallen sick,” Arianna joins in. “And he got the healer to brew potions for her, but nothing worked.”
“And then on the day of my first birthday party…” I start, but I cannot continue. My grandmother squeezes my hand.
“We were all gathered for the celebration,” she says, so I don’t have to. “But we were waiting on your mother and the Sea King to arrive. There was no sign of either.” She takes a deep breath. “And then the Sea King burst through the palace doors, looking as if he had been struck by lightning. And he told us.”
He told the mer-folk how he had followed my mother to the surface that afternoon, and had seen her become ensnared in the human nets. Her body thrashing, the men on the boat jeering, touching her tail without permission, screaming with laughter at my mother’s cries for mercy. He could have stopped them, the Sea King told those congregated at my crib; he was the most powerful man in the kingdom after all. But if he did, then the humans would know there were more creatures like my mother to be found. They might come looking for us, hunting us. And while the Sea king could have protected himself easily, he didn’t want to risk the lives of every other mer-man or maid under the sea in order to save just one of our kind. So, he watched as they took our mother away. And then he told us that she was dead. Which she was, probably; she would not have survived outside of the water for that long. She is dead. Of course she is, it is the only logical conclusion to the story. And yet… We never closed lids over frozen eyes, nor rested tiny pearls upon her lips. We never sang hymns by her lifeless body, nor prayed to the gods to dissolve her soul to sea foam and scatter it on the waves. We were just told that our mother was selfish, that she had abanonded her six daughters to see the wonders that the world above the surface had to offer. And then we were told that she was dead, and we were expected to believe it.
“We are blessed to be where we are, living in this kingdom,” my grandmother says now, and she kisses my head, murmuring love into my skull. “It is time for bed now, little mermaid.”
I wish my family goodnight as I leave, swimming the long corridor from their room until I reach the spiral staircase to my tower. The steps are cut out of packed sand, the walls a mosaic of sea-glass and broken shells, like the bones of fallen sailors that the Salkas steal to make their homes in the Shadowlands, that realm far away from here that the Sea Witch has made her own.
Two maids pass me on the winding path, pushing their backs into the wall. “Apologies, Princess Muirgen. We did not mean to disturb you.” I recognize the prettier girl immediately; Lorelai, whose husband had abandoned her and the children. She had been banished to the Outerlands for a time but she was allowed to return to the palace as a member of the chorus when the Sea King decided he missed her perfect falsetto. No one ever calls her husband “unnatural” for abandoning his children; no, instead they whisper that Lorelai must have failed to satisfy him. Her former husband is re-bonded now, but no mer-man will take on Lorelai. No matter how pretty she is, the weight of a tainted maid with a reputation is beyond endurance.
“Don’t worry,” I say, allowing them to pass without further objection.
I close my bedroom door, leaning against the heavy coral with a sigh. Gaia, I whisper, as if summoning her from deep within, telling her that it’s safe to come out now. I have left Muirgen on the stairs outside; I could not bear her for much longer. I am alone, so I can be true again.
I look up.
The tower opens to the roiling black sea, waves stirring as shoals of fish twist past, a glimmer of metal in the darkness. Moving to the sea-bed for safety, it seems. Storm, the water whispers to me, its voice as familiar as my own. The gods must be angry. A shape passes over the palace; a whale, perhaps, or one of the ships from the human world that my grandmother warns my sisters to be wary of when they go swimming. Not that she need worry; my sisters have broken the surface only once since their respective birthdays. They say it is safer that way, they are reducing the risk of being spotted and imprisoned – we don’t want to end up like our mother, are the words that are left unsaid. I wonder what it must be like to be one of them, to have their curiosity so easily sated. I reach my hands up the surface, as if to touch the ship or the whale, but it is too far away. We are buried alive down here.
“Mother,” I say aloud, the word unfamiliar on my tongue. I am not supposed to say her name. I am not even supposed to think of her. “She didn’t think of any of you, did she?” my father told us time and time again. “She didn’t care enough to stay.”
Mother.